


i hope i cut myself shaving tomorrow (and i hope i never come back to this town again)

by Branches_Cut_The_Sky_Open



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Other, Self-Harm, Slight Canon Divergence, bc i forgot that technically sasha was living with rake fine and eldarion was just her tutor, bc sasha cuts her finger off, but were going with it, ok fair warning this is a little bit graphic, pre-campaign (rusty quill gaming)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29236722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Branches_Cut_The_Sky_Open/pseuds/Branches_Cut_The_Sky_Open
Summary: If Sasha has to stay in this posh house and study posh lessons another minute, she might do something drastic. She's going to do something drastic anyway.
Kudos: 16





	i hope i cut myself shaving tomorrow (and i hope i never come back to this town again)

There’s a lot that Sasha hates about Eldarion’s place. She has to stand with her shoulders back and her head up, _absolutely no slinking, Sasha, you are here to learn to be a lady_. She doesn’t much like her stays or her heavy skirts, let alone the horrible pointy boots Eldarion stuffed her into; they make acrobatics almost impossible, even if she can hide lots of knives in them. She doesn’t mind the chatelaine; at least that’s useful. Needlework would be better if she could practice proper sewing. Elocution is a nightmare.

But the worst is the hair. It’s heavy, and cumbersome, she has to learn how to braid it and put it up _like proper young ladies do, Sasha_ , and if she doesn’t brush it every day, it gets tangled to hell. Not to mention, it’s practically begging someone to grab hold of it in a fight. It gets in her mouth when she’s trying to sleep, and always falls out of whatever ridiculous do her chambermaid put it into. Gods, Sasha has a _chambermaid_. That should be against the law. Except, well, it’s not as though the law has ever had much say in what happens to Sasha. 

She wishes that Eldarion wasn’t so unimpressed all the time. She hates that, too, how much Eldarion’s chilly responses make Sasha want to please her even more, despite herself. 

Thinking about how Eldarion reacted to finding Sasha’s gutter rat clothes, still grubby from a midnight climb down to the sewers, makes Sasha want to slice up every bit of frippery in this room, take her favorite daggers and slash all the pretty dresses to shreds. How Eldarion can cram that much disappointment in pursed lips and a _Sasha, we talked about this_ just _yesterday, honestly sometimes I don’t know why I bother_ , Sasha doesn’t know. Eldarion had taken the clothes away, including her good practical boots, and magicked all of Sasha’s window’s shut. 

Well, almost all of them. 

There’s a window in Sasha’s washroom, high on the wall and almost too small to fit through. But Sasha reckons she can do it. It’s about the same size as window she’d squeezed through last year, at some knobby house in Upper London. There’d been an awful lot of falcon designs in there, but not much worth stealing. 

Sasha smiles to herself, a little grimly. Eldarion’s office security was, frankly, a bit sad. She’d been right about the clothes; they were just in a drawer, the boots too. She’d folded the trousers and shirt carefully around her jacket to stop the soft leather from issuing any kind of creak, and padded back to her room. 

The basin is white porcelain, clean in a way nothing in Other London ever is. Sasha is glad to ruin that, too. She had slashed up a dress after all, but only one. Fabric strips now lie in a neat pile on the washstand. Finally, she begins to pull the pins from her hair. She’d left it up longer than usual, mostly to keep it from interfering with her after-dark activities. But a little piece of her feels distinct satisfaction at taking down now, just to do this. Her favorite dagger, the one that Brock had bought her with the spoils from their first big job, lies out next to the pile of dress scraps. The rest are put away in their various sheathes, ready for her departure. Sasha grabs the dagger in one hand and a hank of hair in the other.

The feeling of slicing through it makes Sasha almost want to cry with relief. She doesn’t care what it looks like as she methodically slashes it off, one fistful at a time. Dark curls drop into the sink, and Sasha’s grim smile turns to a hard little grin.

Finally, it’s all off; Sasha’s head is so light she almost thinks it might just float away.

But that was the easy bit.

Her grin disappears, jaw tightening as her gaze locks on Barret’s brass ring.

That was how Eldarion had known about Sasha’s escapades last week; Sasha knew she was a good enough sneak to get away with it, but she’d forgot about the tracking spell on the ring. _Stupid_. She’d been so careful, too. She hadn’t snuck off hardly at all for all the months she’d been here. But last week, after a particularly cutting lecture from Eldarion about _all the time and resources we are, clearly, wasting on your education_ , she just couldn’t stand it anymore. The pretty, comfortable room with all its little fragile objects, the big posh house, Eldarion’s condescension. So she’d climbed out the window and dropped down the nearest manhole cover. She’d just needed to be underground for a little while. But no, she can’t keep even that. Because once she pulls this off, she can’t ever go back to Other London. 

She steels herself. Thinks about what Brock told her when he gave her the knife. _With this, you won’t even need me there to get you out of your scrapes!_ She’d laughed, told him to shove it. _We both know I’m the one getting both of us out of your scrapes._

Hand splayed on the white stone of the washstand. This will be such a mess. Sasha feels a little smug, and a little sorry for the chambermaid. 

Teeth gritted, Sasha brings the blade down on her left ring finger, aiming just below the ring. She’s glad that this knife is heavy enough, because the bone would be tricky for a lighter blade, even as sharp as it is. She can feel a wail trying to work its way up her throat, but her blood is up now, and she almost can’t feel it as the finger bone cracks and the knife shears through. 

She’s starting to shake, which is bad, if she’s going to make down from her second-story room through that tiny little window. Jaw still tight, she rinses the stump with her pitcher, then folds up one of her handkerchiefs, binding it down with the strips of mutilated dress. With the help of a somewhat unstable chair, she pries open the window. 

She almost falls. The pain and the blood loss are starting to hit her by the time she reaches the ground, but she grips the bloody dagger in her good hand and forces herself onward. She knows the route to Bi Ming Gusset’s. Thankfully, it’s not too far. For the first time, she’s glad she’s in the upper city, because she’s starting to be too dizzy to stay hidden properly, and her pockets are full of valuable-looking things she’d filched from Eldarion’s. In Other London, she’d be face-down in a gutter with her own knife in her spine by now. 

By the time she arrives at Bi Ming’s shop, Sasha is running on determination alone. The alley swings in her view as she raises her hand to knock. She gives a soft thump with the pommel of her dagger and then slumps against the wall, nearly spent.

-

A gentle rap at his back door snaps Bi Ming away from his brandy. He’d closed up for the night, and is just sitting in his study, having a quiet drink. 

But someone is knocking, so he grabs the crossbow from its hook on the wall and, loading it, goes to investigate.

He opens the door to find Sasha, looking even paler than usual, almost ghastly in the spill of light from his hallway. She’s leaning heavily against the alley wall, and seems to be struggling to remain even this upright.

“Sasha? Hermes and his snakesman, what the hell happened to you? Does Eldarion know you’re here?” Bi Ming lowers his crossbow.

Sasha’s smile is shaky, and she raises her left hand in greeting, “Don’t need to worry about Eldarion. Barret neither. Far as either of them know, I’m still in that bloody room.”

She’s missing a finger. Well, that solves one problem. Bi Ming steps back and hurries her inside.

**Author's Note:**

> a snakesman is a thief, usually a skinny little boy, who could sneak into a house via chimneys or small windows and then let it the rest of his crew.


End file.
